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Small Screen Style: Breaking Bad's ‘Crap Boyfriend’ Look

As the meth opus reaches its unflinchingly dark and disastrous conclusion, Anna Hart admits to being hopelessly devoted to Aaron Paul’s wardrobe

Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman is, in a word, an everyboyfriend. Show me a woman who claims she’s never kissed, dated or texted a Jesse Pinkmanalike, and I’ll call her a meth head liar. Your Pinkmanalike won’t have been a brilliant boyfriend, and he probably won’t have been in your life for long. You might even have been wary of calling him your ‘boyfriend’, because you were never really sure where you stood. It took very little to scare him off, and then he’d text something about ‘needing some space’ or ‘keeping things chilled’ or ‘not being ready for a relationship right now’. His idea of a date was to ask you to bring some crisps around to his place and watching him play video games and smoking pot with his mates, Cypress Hill blaring in the background.

Yes, he was a crap boyfriend. But you knew it could all be so different! He might try to dress and talk like a gangsta, but you know he’s no badass; he’s got a sensitive side. Like that time you were cold and he lent you his oversized Ecko hoodie and you felt like you really were his girl. If he could only get his sh** together, stop hanging around with his lame druggy friends and get some direction in life, he’d be your dream boyfriend. Because deep down he’s a good guy, you tell your friends. He’s just got issues. And you want to be the one to fix him.

Jesse’s style, consisting of baggy Raw Blue jeans, slogan Volcom jackets and graphic Metal Mulisha tees that all swamp his weedy frame instead of making him look bigger and badder, is a shrewdly curated wardrobe that looks exactly like the gear covering every Pinkmanalike’s bedroom floor. And it’s because Jesse Pinkman reminds us so much of that flawed-but-adorable ex that we’re rooting for him through the highs and lows of Breaking Bad. We’re still there while he peddles meth to kids, disposes of bodies and callously lures his recovering addict girlfriend back onto smack. We can’t help it. Because we just know that if we got cold, he’d still lend us that hoodie.